Computer-supported co-operative work (CSCW) is a field of study that addresses how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems. The embodiments of CSCW provide for people working in groups using the enabling technologies of computer networking, associated hardware, software, services, and techniques that are often referred to as groupware, computer-assisted collaboration or media-assisted collaboration.
A collaboration session typically involves multiple participants who access the session via any of a plurality of well-know communication medium such as, for example, terrestrial telephony (e.g. Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN)), mobile (a.k.a. cellular) telephony (e.g. Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)), broadband connection (e.g. Internet Protocol (IP)), and other radio-based connections (e.g. Wi-Fi (a.k.a. IEEE 802.11)). Some collaboration systems support the use of different communication media by each of the participants.
Each participant uses a computing-platform based device (i.e. access appliance) such as, for example, a personal computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile phone, an Internet browser running on any of the these devices, and other similar communication devices. Many currently available collaboration systems either support a limited selection devices or require that a collaboration system client application (e.g. Internet browser plug-ins) be loaded and executed on the device in order to participate in a session. Due to various security, performance and convenience considerations, many participants would prefer to be able to use a platform of their choice without the need to load a collaboration system specific client application.
The collaboration session is hosted by a computing-platform based system often referred to as a collaboration server. The collaboration server can be either a monolithic system or a distributed system including components shared with other systems. The capabilities of the collaboration server determines what types of media can be included in the collaboration session. Media types can, for example, include audio, video and data. Data media can include files, web pages, bit-streams and other similar data representations in a variety of well know encoding formats. The capabilities supported in the collaboration session can be further determined by parameters managed by an administrator of the collaboration system.
Each collaboration session typically has a designated organizer who arranges for the session to be established and who may specify parameters for the session.
Typically, each participant in the collaboration session is authenticated before joining the session. When a participant joins, or leaves, the session the event is made known to other participants. The arrival and departure of a participant is announced using an identity assigned to the participant. Authentication and the identities of participants are typically managed by an administrator of the collaboration server, the organizer of the collaboration session, or a combination of the two. In some collaboration contexts it is desirable that the participant be able to control the identity use to identify him/her and to announce his/her arrival and departure (e.g. when the participant wishes to remain anonymous or wishes to monitor the collaboration session without the other participants being aware of his/her participation). This capability is not provided by currently available collaboration systems.
Typically collaboration systems are designed to permit each participant to join a collaboration session using any one platform via any one communications medium. With a growing diversity of platforms available and with the every growing pervasiveness of a multitude of communication media, participants want to be able to switch platforms and/or communication media while continuing to participate in a collaboration session. The ability to switch platforms and/or communication media would enable a degree of flexibility and mobility not afforded to participants by currently available collaboration systems.
Available collaboration systems that demonstration some of the shortcomings described above include WebEX™ (www.webex.com), GoToMeeting® (www.gotomeeting.com), and MicroSoft Office SharePoint Serve.
What is needed is a system and method for collaboration that permits participants to control their identity in a collaboration session, permits participants to change the access appliance used to access a collaboration session during the course of the session.